Uncle Josh at the Bug house

I was 19 when I first lay eyes on this 78, so it wasn’t my first novelty record, by a long shot. It was most likely one of the earliest ones that my mother heard, though. The phonograph was in the living room when she was a child in Minnesota, on what we’ve always heard referred to as “the farm up North”. Mom tells me the children weren’t allowed to play in the living room so her rare opportunities to play around with the phonograph and the small stack of 78 RPM discs was when “the folks” would leave town, as they’d do a few times a year to go visit relatives in neighboring states.

By the time I first saw the surviving selections they fit into a couple of 35mm film canisters; one had been painted an eggshell white and decorated with an appliqué. How those came into the family I’ll never know, but they held an assortment of discs from the turn of the century, most of the dates between 1900 and 1910, should memory serve (as it does less and less these days). Many were nearly played out from the weight of the heavy tone arm that tortured them with a steel needle each time they were played; some were so old as to be single-sided, the blank side often sporting a gummed label from the music store it had come home from.

During the last couple decades of his lifetime Cal Stewart (1856-1919) made quite a few recordings of his widely performed vaudeville routines as Uncle Josh Weathersby, beginning with some cylinders for Thomas Edison's studio about 1897 and continuing with RCA and Columbia up until his death at the end of 1919. The 78 from my grandparent’s cabin was “Uncle Josh at the Bug house,” about his stay in a rooming house owned by a family named Bug ("I'm kinda hungry, guess I'll have another potato, Bug!"). Our disc was the Columbia version (ca 1907) but he recorded different versions both before (on Edison cylinder, ca 1901) and after.

Stewart’s stories were punctuated throughout with his infectious laugh that still gets me, more often than not. The recording is old and worn, but you can still make out the story. Here's “Uncle Josh at the Bug house”.

Although we only had the one 78, Stewart’s other recordings have been widely circulated, are easily found online and well worth a listen. The second example here was early enough to be done on cylinder some time before his stay at the Bug house.

“Uncle Josh in a Chinese laundry” might fly no farther today than the ill-advised Abercrombie and Fitch laundry T-shirts did a few years ago (they were only on store shelves the morning of their release before being yanked) but as a simple humor reference it’s entertaining. This recording is in the public domain but comes courtesy of the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.

The last one for today is from 1919, making it one of his last recordings. Since classical and opera has long been a favorite with many in my family it’s only fitting to include “Uncle Josh at the Opera”.

These recordings are in the public domain but the last two come courtesy of the University of California Santa Barbara Library, noted here at their request.